In June 2014 Polman received his honorary doctorate during the 400th anniversary of the University of Groningen.[8]

On May 18, 2018, Polman received his Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from George Mason University. As the day's Commencement speaker,[9] Dr. Polman declared, "Any system where too many feel they are not participating or are left behind will ultimately rebel against itself."[10] Capturing the spirit of his own sense of purpose, he continued, "The world we want will only be achieved when we choose action over indifference, courage over comfort, and solidarity over division."

Polman worked for Procter & Gamble for 27 years, starting in 1979 as a cost analyst, becoming managing director of P&G U.K. from 1995 to 1998, president of global fabric care from 1998 to 2001, and group president for Europe in 2001.

On 1 January 2009, Polman succeeded Patrick Cescau as chief executive officer of Unilever. Under Polman's leadership, Unilever has set a target to decouple its growth from its overall environmental footprint and improve its social impact through the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan.[12] Polman has argued that, in a volatile world of finite resources, running a business sustainably is vital for its long-term growth[13] and also mitigates risk and reduces costs.[14] Unilever has now seen eight years of top line growth, averaging twice the rate of overall market growth, whilst improving the bottom line and delivering a total shareholder return of 290%. Bernstein's 2017 Blackbook entitled 'European Food and HPC: 10-Year Global Market Share Analysis' rated Unilever top-of-class for absolute market share gains (ex-M&A) and a proportion of its categories with gains. It also compared medium-term operating expectations to current valuations, leading to an Outperform rating on Unilever. Some shareholders, however, have worried that Polman's focus on sustainability has become more important to him than the financial performance of Unilever after the company missed sales targets for six out of eight quarters in 2013 and 2014. Polman, who scrapped short-term targets at the company, has argued that the failure to meet targets is a result of erratic currency fluctuations and the slow-down in emerging markets since 2013. Paul Polman has said that he has ambitions to increase the company's sales in emerging markets from the current 57% (47% in 2008) to 70% of turnover. Procter & Gamble, by contrast, make only 37% of sales in emerging markets and Nestlé 43%.[15] In 2009, Polman decided to make many significant management changes in order to improve Unilever's revenue in each of its business pillars.

In 2016, Polman's total compensation was €8.3 million including a basic salary of €1.2million and other benefits (2015, €10.2 million).[16]

In its H1 2017 results, Unilever met analyst expectations when it reported underlying sales growth of 3.0% in the first half of 2017, ahead of markets. Underlying operating margin was up 180bps.[17]

In 2018, Unilever supported the abolition of Dutch dividend-tax.[18] As an argument that it was the reason, Unilever proposed moving its HQ to Rotterdam, the Netherlands.[19] Even though over 80% of Dutch citizens were against the tax-cut. Meaning a loss of about 2 billion euros of tax-revenue a year for the Dutch state.[20] In October 2018, it was announced Unilever has cancelled plan to move headquarters from London to Rotterdam.[21] In November 2018, Polman has announced that he will be stepping down as chief executive officer of Unilever at the end of 2018 with Alan Jope succeeding him.[22]

He has co-authored a report published be the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) that criticizes the efforts of the SDGs as not ambitious enough. Instead of aiming for an end to poverty by 2030, the report "An Ambitious Development Goal: Ending Hunger and Undernutrition by 2025" calls for a greater emphasis on eliminating hunger and undernutrition and achieving that in 5 years less, by 2025.[27]

Polman co-founded the Dutch Sustainable Growth Coalition, led by former Dutch prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende. He is a member of the World Economic Forum International Business Council,[28] the Global Taskforce for Scaling up Nutrition (SUN)[29] and was part of the European Resource Efficiency Platform Working Group,[30] chaired by European Commissioner Janez Potočnik. He was co-chair of the World Economic Forum 2012. He is a counsellor of One Young World[31] and trustee of the Leverhulme Trust. Polman was co-chair of the B-20 Food Security Taskforce.[32]

Polman serves on the board of Unilever since January 2009 and was elected to the Dow board of directors in February 2010 where he serves on the Environment, Health, Safety and Technology Committee.[33] He formerly served on the Board of Alcon. Polman is also part of the Leadership Vanguard, an initiative that seeks to identify, support and mobilise the next generation of leaders, focuses on redefining value.[34]

He is president of the Kilimanjaro Blind Trust, a foundation he created to benefit blind children in Africa, and chair of the Perkins International Advisory Board.